Impact of corporate social responsibility on tax avoidance: evidence from Tunisian context

This paper aims to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance among publicly listed banks, based on their annual reports and websites within a developing market, specifically Tunisia. The necessary data were collected from the annual reports of a sample of nine Tunisian banks listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange (BVMT) for the period from 2012 to 2018. According to the estimated results, it can be concluded that the less involved banks are in economic and environmental activities, the more likely they are to engage in fraudulent tax-related behaviors. The findings indicate that a bank’s tax avoidance is influenced by the nature of its social responsibility activities. In particular, banks that participate in social initiatives are less prone to evade taxes.